BOTTA, PAUL EMILE (1802-70). A French arehnologist and traveler. He was born in Turin, the sou of Carlo Giuseppe Guglielmo Botta. While still young he undertook a voyage round the world, and remained some time on the west coasts of America, where he zealously collected treasures of natural history. In the year 1S30 he went to Egypt, where he entered the service of Mehemet Ali as physician. and in this capacity accompanied the Egyptian expedi tion to Sennar. Here he formed a very con siderable zoUlogieal collection, with which he returned to Cairo in 1833. The French Govern ment now appointed him consul in Alexandria, from whence he undertook a journey to Arabia, the results of which he published in a work en titled Relation d'un voyage dons l'I•(:men, ent•e pris 1837, pour le museum d'histoi•e naturclle de Paris (1S41). At the suggestion of the Orientalist Julius Mohl, of Paris. he was by the Government sent as consular agent to 3losul, and at this place he commenced a series of discover ies which form an epoch in arelueologieal science. Early in the spring of 1843 lie began his diggings in the heaps of ruins at Khorsabad, near the Tigris, for monuments of Assyrian antiquity. These excavations revealed much valuable archa•o logical material, including the ruins of the pal ace of Sargon, King of Assyria (u.c. 722-705).
The Journal Asiatique soon contained accounts of the success with which his enterprise and per severance were rewarded. and also disquisitions on the extremely difficult subject of the cuneiform writings of the Assyrians, which afterwards ap peared as a separate publication under the title iljmoircs de reeriture euntiforme assyrienne (1848). The French Government took up the matter warmly; Flandin, a practiced draughts man, was sent out for the purpose of making sketches on the spot of the sculptures on ala baster, so apt to fall to pieces; and a eommis skin of learned men was appointed for the purpose of conducting the publication of a mag nificent arelurological work, which shortly after wards appeared under the special superintendence Botta himself, with the title I/m/meats de Viaire di'courcrts et (Merits par Botta mesures et dessim's par Plandin (1847-50). In 1848 he published the Inscriptions deeourertes cI Khor salmi). In 1846 Botta was appointed consul at Jerusalem. and in 1857 at Tripoli. He returned to France in 1SGS, and died at Acheres, near Poissy. See ASSYRIA.